Israel attacks central Gaza as 22,000 reported killed in the strip

Israel’s military attacks continued to focus on Khan Younis, Gaza’s second largest city, at the weekend with troops engaging in close-range fighting with Hamas militants.

Israel says its target is the Hamas leadership in the southern city, either above ground or below ground, combined with intense efforts to locate the hostages Israel believes are being held there.

Prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that Israel will not give up security control over the Gaza Strip. “Only the Israel Defence Forces can carry out this mission and we will not give up the right to control security control of the Strip,” he said.

The health ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza strip reported that almost 22,000 residents had been killed since October 7th, when 1,200 people were killed and 240 kidnapped in Israel in the surprise Hamas attack.

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Israel’s foreign minister, Eli Cohen, said on Sunday that ships can deliver aid to the war-ravaged Gaza Strip “immediately” as part of a proposed sea corridor from Cyprus. He said Britain, France, Greece, and the Netherlands were among countries with vessels able to land directly on the shores of Gaza, which lacks a deep-water port, after undergoing security inspection in the Cypriot port of Larnaca.

Around 70 per cent of the homes in the Gaza Strip and half of its buildings have been damaged or destroyed by Israel since the beginning of the bombardment, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The report indicated that around 300,000 homes have been destroyed and, according to aid organisations, it will take between 7-10 years to rebuild them.

Additionally, it was reported that most of the damaged infrastructure, including water, electricity, communication, and health facilities, cannot be repaired.

Tens of thousands of people rallied on Saturday night in Tel Aviv to call on the Israeli government to immediately present a plan for securing the release of all 129 hostages who still remain in Hamas captivity.

Contacts are continuing between Israel and Qatari and Egyptian mediators over a new deal to free some of the hostages. Hamas is reportedly prepared to negotiate the release of between 40 and 50 Israeli female, elderly and infirm hostages in return for Israeli consent to pause the fighting for 20 days and to release Palestinian prisoners. However, significant gaps remain and a deal is still not close.

US secretary of state Antony Blinken is expected to arrive in Israel towards the end of next week – his fifth trip since the start of the war - and he reportedly wants to hear Israel’s ideas on the ‘day after’ the Gaza war. The Israeli security cabinet is set to hold a long-awaited discussion on the issue on Tuesday but Mr Netanyahu said there was no need to discuss the day after until the war ends.

The conflict appeared to be developing a wider regional dimension over the weekend as Israel moved to prevent Iran rearming Hizbullah. Syria blamed Israel for attacks on arms convoys and warehouses in eastern Syria and in Aleppo.

Cross-border fire continued on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon on Sunday as Hizbullah’s deputy leader Naim Qassem, said the fighting would only stop when Israel stopped its attacks in Gaza.

US special envoy Amos Hochstein and French defence minister Sébastien Lecornu are both expected to visit Lebanon and then Israel in the coming week in an effort to ease tensions on the Israel-Lebanon border. However, Israeli officials remain sceptical over the chances of reaching a solution without the use of military force.